Defence Against the Dark Arts Part VII: Charlotte Brontë’s Martin Yorke

Of all the characters in all the Brontë sisters’ novels, Martin Yorke, who appears in Charlotte Brontë’s socio-historical novel Shirley, is my favourite.

Shirley (1849) is set in rural Yorkshire in 1811/12 against a background of industrial unrest, of violent opposition to the introduction of machinery in the local textile industry. 

Charlotte Brontë intended Shirley to be a counterpoint to her first novel, Jane Eyre, which was considered to be melodramatic and unrealistic. Shirley was to be political, significant, true to life and, in her own words, “real, cool and solid, as unromantic as a Monday morning.” 

Similarly, Martin Yorke is far from being a dominant, dangerous, glamorous, smouldering, rugged romantic hero like the demonic duo of Heathcliff and Mr Rochester. Martin is nobody’s fantasy ideal man: he is a funny, greedy, clever, mischievous schoolboy who in my opinion is worth more than both those bad Byronic boyos put together. 

Martin Yorke is only a minor character in Shirley, but the scenes I most enjoy in the book are the ones that he appears in. His antics and sayings remind me not only of Rudyard Kipling’s Stalky, but also of people I have known in real life. Charlotte Brontë modelled him on the brother of a close friend of hers.

The Three Hostages: a sinister scenario

I was very young when I first read John Buchan’s thriller The Three Hostages, an adventure story that features Richard Hannay and contains a fascinating mystery to be solved.

At the time, certain expressions that would now be considered ‘politically incorrect’ and offensive did not register, nor did I see anything particularly noteworthy in the horrific mental state of the hostages and the unpleasant, alien conditions in which they were forced to live. At the time, the clues to the hiding places of the hostages and the challenge of finding and freeing them were the most gripping aspects of the story. 

The details of life as lived by privileged, well-connected people were very interesting too. I found the book exciting and informative. I envied Richard Hannay: I wanted that sort of action and lifestyle for myself!

Now, after many years of investigating unseen influences, it is the references to magic, wizards and the stealing of souls, the discussions of psychology and the subconscious mind and the descriptions of hypnotism and mind control that are for me the most significant aspects of the book. 

As his friend and colleague Sandy Arbuthnot says to Richard Hannay:

“…the compulsion of spirit by spirit.  That, I have always believed, is to-day, and ever has been, the true magic.”

There is a lot of general information in The Three Hostages about the sinister and unethical practices mentioned above, and about the attributes, abilities and personality of the kind of man who would make use of them.

Now, what holds my attention above everything else is the effect that these practices have when applied to the hostages, also the details of hostages’ lives while in captivity.  Much of this has relevance to the real world; some of it is also very familiar to me. The resemblances that I can see and the connections that I can make to my own life are very painful to dwell on. 

Diana Wynne Jones: two alarming coincidences

I have written about some connections I made between certain scenes in Charlotte Brontë’s writings and events in her life. 

I doubt whether she ever realised that incidents she had created and dwelt on in her imagination had manifested in the real world. 

Diana Wynne Jones is another matter. She did notice a connection between what she was writing about and unexpected, unwelcome incidents in her life. This example comes from Diana Wynne Jones’s book Reflections: On the Magic of Writing:

“… And my books have developed an uncanny way of coming true. The most startling example of this was last year, when I was writing the end of A Tale of Time City. At the very moment when I was writing about all the buildings in Time City falling down, the roof of my study fell in, leaving most of it open to the sky.”

Nicholas Stuart Gray’s witch: Mother Gothel

The witch Mother Gothel appears in Nicholas Stuart Gray’s story The Stone Cage, which is a re-telling of the Rapunzel fairy tale. Rapunzel is a maiden with very long hair who is kept prisoner by a witch at the top of a tall stone tower.

The book is currently unobtainable: all I could find was the dramatised version of The Stone Cage, which is better than nothing. This play has also been performed under the name The Wrong Side of the Moon.

Mother Gothel as depicted in The Stone Cage is based on a real person - Nicholas Stuart Gray’s mother. 

Mother Gothel is introduced
“She is a witch, in the worst meaning of the word. A creature of malice, egotism and cruelty. She is so interested in herself, that she has little time to spare for anyone else’s feelings or well-being. She considers the world against her, and beneath her. She is absolutely alone, and does not even realise that she minds the fact…Once, long ago, she was beautiful. Now, she would be avoided by anyone with sense…”

More about Mother Gothel – in her own words
“Obey me, crawl to me, cringe, and love me!”

“I do not forgive anything – ever.”

“I have little or no sense of humour. It’s quite fatal to true wickedness.”

This reminds me of something Richard Hannay says in John Buchan’s The Three Hostages: “I saw it as farce… and at the coming of humour the spell died”.  

“It’s best to catch ‘em young…Before their minds open. When they know nothing, except what you choose to tell them. See nothing but what you care to show. When right and wrong are words to juggle with, and black and white is interchangeable...”

This too is familiar: Dominick Medina, the villain of The Three Hostages, wipes the memories of his young captives and fills their minds with his own creations. The mention of black and white reminds me of another of Hannay’s comments: “I felt that I was looking on at an attempt, which the devil is believed to specialise in, to make evil good and good evil...” 

Four drowned sisters: accident or sinister arrangement?

A uniquely high tide and severe gales caused the River Thames to burst its banks in the early hours of January 7th 1928. 

Some areas were flooded, and 14 people drowned in their beds. Four of these were the young Harding sisters, who were trapped in their basement bedroom in central London.

These and many other subsequent deaths caused the Thames Barrier to be proposed and eventually built to help prevent such disasters from happening again.

I am wondering whether the deaths of the sisters could have been prevented at the time.

I first heard about this sad incident years after the Thames Barrier opened, and I made some notes about it. Some floods in the Thames area earlier this year brought the memories back, and I decided to do some research online.

The second golden rule: be very careful what you dwell on

I have written about the possible link between Charlotte Brontë’s youthful obsession with Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and her eventual marriage to a dark man called Arthur. I also mentioned the possible connection I noticed between Mr Rochester’s fall from his horse in Jane Eyre and Charlotte’s fall the first time she ever got up on a horse.

An incident in the life of the Spanish Surrealist artist Remedios Varo, whose strange and wonderful pictures deserve to be more widely known, provides another example of such possible connections. I found it in Unexpected Journeys, The Art and Life of Remedios Varo by Janet A. Kaplan. 

It happened in Paris in 1938, when she was with a group of other members of the inner circle of Surrealists. They had been drinking, when one man, Esteban Francés, made a remark criticising her personal life. 

An artist called Oscar Dominguez rose to defend Varo’s honour. An ugly fight broke out; people tried to separate the two men but Dominguez managed to free one arm and hurl a glass at Francés. Unfortunately, it completely missed and hit someone else, an artist called Victor Brauner. It tore one of his eyes out.

The strange coincidence here is that Brauner had painted many one-eyed creatures earlier, including a self-portrait of himself with one eye missing in 1931.  Another picture, painted in 1932, shows a man with his eye being punctured by a shaft with the letter D attached to it. 

Did Brauner have a premonition that this loss would happen? 

Did he subconsciously will it to happen? 

Did he get caught in his own psychic trap?


Could this be yet another example of something manifesting in the life of a creative person just because he had been dwelling on it? 

Watership Down: a sinister scenario

There is an episode in Richard Adams’s Watership Down that made me feel very uncomfortable when I first read the book and still affects me negatively many years later.

I see this book as much more than an entertaining story about the adventures of some fictional rabbits: it has many relevancies to humans and real life.

The episode in question can be interpreted in many ways: psychologically, metaphysically and politically. There are aspects that remind me of cults and conspiracy theories too.

It all begins when two very different groups of wild rabbits meet for the first time.

The nomads meet a settlement of eerie, unnatural rabbits
A band of wandering rabbits is seeking a new home because of a predicted disaster. They find a promising-looking field then discover that it is already inhabited by other rabbits. The existing occupants are large, sleek and healthy and seem very prosperous. They are not hostile: they are unexpectedly welcoming and invite the newcomers to join them, saying that there is plenty of spare room in the warren. 

Fiver, a member of the travelling band who is psychically gifted, advises his companions to have nothing to do with the place and its inhabitants. He says they should all leave at once. 

The rabbits are under the unofficial leadership of Fiver’s brother Hazel, who despite the warning decides to accept the strangers’ hospitality. He leads his band down into the warren. 

The others start to mingle and settle in but Fiver sits alone and apart, apparently ill or very much depressed. The new rabbits avoid him instinctively.